


Inside My World

by TheAnswerIsDawn



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-14
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-01-24 17:49:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1613924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAnswerIsDawn/pseuds/TheAnswerIsDawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Short snapshots of Sherlock's life through different years. AU now that season 3 is out. Abandoned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Age 1 to 10

He is one, and everyone agrees that there is something wrong with the baby. Beyond screaming, Sherlock hasn’t attempted to speak, not even to babble nonsense like Mycroft did as a baby, and mummy is worried. There is talk of doctors and hospitals and whispered words like _retarded_ that Mycroft knows from his big Oxford dictionary that was his birthday present, but the elder Holmes boy knows that Sherlock is clever, because Mycroft can see the brain whirring behind those blue eyes. And he understands too the screaming when there is too much noise and too much input, because it is a curse of his own intellect.

So, after endless worrying and tears and despair, Mycroft is the only one who isn’t surprised when, a few months after his second birthday, Sherlock walks into the kitchen and asks if he can please have a glass of milk before breakfast, and would Mycroft read to him?

* * *

He is five the first time he picks up a violin. He finds it in the attic, hidden behind boxes of photos and ghosts and memories of times he is too young to know but too curious to ignore, and if he hadn’t tripped over it and sprained his wrist it is likely that it would have remained there as he sifted through the photos and books and the detritus of ages.

But he trips, and when he sits up with pain crawling up his arm but not tears (never tears – he is a Holmes, and Holmes’ don’t cry), he sees the box lying there, and he is entranced. There is a layer of dust on the faded leather covering the case, and a family of spiders has taken up residence amongst the scarlet velvet of the interior, but the instrument seems untouched by time, and Sherlock loves it.

Mummy, ever the musician, takes him into town to have it professionally tuned, and when it is returned with new strings and a quality bow, he begins his lessons.

* * *

He is seven, and in the corner of the schoolyard he is poring over a chemistry book as thick as his arm that he has checked out from the library on Mycroft’s library card. So while the other boys play football or stand around in groups, Sherlock is content to hide behind his mop of black curls and devour all the knowledge that he can, before Mycroft makes him return the book.

As if they aren’t rich enough to pay the late-return fee.

Snorting indignantly, Sherlock flips the page and scans the column of text, hoping to finish the chapter before Trevor and his gang get bored of football and turn to their second-favourite sport.

“Hey, look, it’s the freak!”

Too late. Sherlock sighs, and takes a note of his page number.

* * *

He is nine, and he wants to be a pirate. It’s Mycroft’s fault really, for letting him read ‘Treasure Island’, but the sixteen year old doesn’t mind; whether they are playing pirates or poring over Mycroft’s science homework, having Sherlock is almost like having an equal and, in a world where they are both more intelligent than their teachers, that means a lot.

Because Sherlock’s mind needs constant stimulation and, although Mycroft is teaching him how to filter out unimportant information, he still has days when everything is too loud and too confusing and he tears himself to shreds because the constant input of data is driving him crazy. Mycroft finds that numbers help in times like these, and he sits Sherlock down and they count up in prime numbers as high as they can, until their throats are sore and Sherlock is ready to sleep.

And when Mycroft tucks him into bed, he hears Sherlock’s whispered plea, and he cradles the boy’s head on his knees as he reads to him his favourite book.

_“Squire Trelawney, Dr. Livesey, and the rest of these gentlemen having asked me to write down the whole particulars...[1]”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson


	2. Age 11 to 20

He is twelve, and it is raining at the funeral. Mycroft and Father are both huddled miserably under black umbrellas as they stand at opposite ends of the graveside, but Sherlock lets the rain pour down his face and ruin his tailored suit and wash away the feelings that are settling in his chest like sediment in one of his experiments, until all he feels hatred, because Mycroft wasn't there when it happened, and Father has been sleeping with the nurse for two years, and now mummy is _dead-dead-dead_ , and he is useless.

Because even though he is the one who stayed with her, it was Mycroft she had been calling for at the end, perfect bloody Mycroft who swore to look after Sherlock and went off to Oxford instead, and now Sherlock wants to scream because the sound of the rain and the muttering of prayers and his own treacherous breathing are too bloody loud, and the crowd of people is closing in around him like a wall of lies and secrets, details he doesn't want to notice.

He flees as if he could outrun his skin itself.  

* * *

He is thirteen, and Mycroft won’t answer his phone, even though he _swore_ that Sherlock could call him any time. Sherlock believed him then, but the phone just keeps ringing until it cuts off, and when he tries two minutes later, it has been switched off, and he knows that Mycroft has left him too.

It is a betrayal that almost makes him cry, but Sherlock doesn't cry, not even when Jamie twists his arms behind his back so that Trevor can black both his eyes, not even when they kick him in the ribs until he can’t breathe, not even when Father slaps him when he is drunk (which has only happened twice, but Sherlock is counting).

And so Sherlock decides that he doesn't care, and he almost, almost deletes Mycroft’s number, except maybe, he thinks, it would be prudent to have a number to contact, even if his brother doesn't care either.

Years later, when he’s fleeing for his life through some dark alley, he is glad that he kept the number on speed dial.

* * *

He is fifteen, and angry at the world as only a teenager can be, but Mycroft knows it is more than that. Sherlock will never confide in him, not any more, but Mycroft remembers enough of himself at that age, and of course, to the man who will go on to _be_ the British Government, Sherlock is transparent. Or almost transparent. Because this time, for the first time in a long time, Mycroft has no idea what he has done to upset his little brother. And, while he could brave the warzone of Sherlock’s bedroom to find out, it will mean being late for his new job, and so instead he calls goodbye to a father who won’t listen, and gets into the car.

He’s never regretted something so much as he regrets leaving that day.

* * *

He is twenty the first time he meets Mike Stamford, and the corridor at St. Bart’s is packed with people. Sherlock doesn’t pay much attention to the grinning medical student who brushes past him where he stands, and he soon deletes all memory of the man, overwriting it with his newest lab experiment. Sherlock isn’t really studying for anything (Cambridge was _dull_ and there’s no way he’s going back to university), but he has wormed his way into the good books of most of the lecturers and he soon becomes a familiar face at the hospital. Still, it’s not until he’s twenty eight that he really takes note of Stamford. The man has changed, gained weight, and Sherlock does not recognise him, but the student-turned-lecturer seems to remember him, and they strike up a sort-of-friendship. When, idly complaining that nobody would want him as a roommate, Sherlock plants the idea in Stamford’s mind, he never expects the throwaway comment will change his life.

Even geniuses can be taken by surprise.

 


	3. Age 21 to 30

He is twenty-two, and as he depresses the plunger, the feel of cold metal in his arm is replaced with a tingling warmth as the world spins into focus. Everything has become a single burning point, and for the first time in a long time, outside data becomes unimportant. Soon he finds that he can choose what he absorbs, what he notices, and he welcomes it like a blessing. The feeling of power it gives him is worth the pounding headache and sandpaper mouth the next morning, and the next time the world is spinning out of control, he does it again.

He never means to get addicted.

* * *

He is twenty-five, and he knows life’s darkest secrets. But at the moment, shivering on your couch in the empty flat, he looks about twelve, and you’re hard pressed to believe that this is the same man who blazed his way into your life two years ago in the same way you’ve seen him blaze through a crime scene and deduce the murderer from the victim’s nail polish. ( _“I know you’ve been married for seven, no, eight years, one child, a son in fact, no older than five. I know you’ve recently been promoted to Detective Inspector; and that you play guitar, probably quite well...”)_

If anyone had told you then that you would be sitting there in the armchair as Sherlock sweated and cursed his way through withdrawal, you would have had them admitted straight away, but over the last two years you’ve grown to care for the irritating genius, and though you’d rather die than tell him, when he’d called you moments before passing out, you were terrified. Absolutely fucking terrified.

But you’ll never tell him that. Git.

* * *

He is twenty-eight, and for the first time in his life he has a friend. Not a Sebastian Wilkes ‘I’ll-use-you-and-you’ll-use-me’ sort of friend, not even a Mike Stamford ‘let’s-be-mates-if-you-want’ kind of friend, but a proper, loyal, ‘I-have-your-back-and-I’ll-put-up-with-your-crap-in-fact-I-think-I’ll-even-enjoy-it’ sort of friend. John Watson.  _Doctor_ John Watson, in fact, Sherlock thinks with a smile.

Doctor John Watson who kills for him within days of meeting him, who tolerates his eccentricities and is addicted to the adrenaline rush, the friend who compliments his intelligence, the conductor of light, the one who stays loyal to the end, even when their world is falling down around their ears.

The friend who believes in Sherlock Holmes.

* * *

He is thirty, and the wind rushing past his ears makes him want to vomit. Over the sound of his racing heartbeat he can hear John screaming at him, hear the sheer bloody panic in his voice, and he can feel the matching tears on his own face as he falls. Falling is just like flying, Moriarty had said, and Sherlock hopes in those few seconds that everything will go to plan, because otherwise he’ll be reaching a very permanent destination and, though he’d die for John in a heartbeat, he values his life  _thankyouverymuch_ .

Afterwards, he tries so very hard to delete those moments of terror, but even when he is old and grey he still finds himself jerking awake as he hits the ground, the echo of John’s scream ringing in his ears.

Reichenbach’s ghosts linger in the dark crevices of his mind.


End file.
